Ah sorry for the delayed and late chapter, I got a little caught up in stuff :)
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     I wasn't sure who was more surprised, Eddie who had a giant cat sitting on top of him or me, who was staring into the blue eyes of the wire wielding pre-pubescent who had come to my rescue. Sky crouched there for only a moment, perfectly poised and brandishing a metal garrot, before Edie regained his composure and kicked the leopard off of him.

    "Oh I don't think so!" She bared her teeth and leapt at on on all fours.

    Eddie blinked before scrambling away as fast as humanly possible in attempt to escaped the small red-headed she-wolf gaining steady distance on him. Sky tackled him and threw her wire around him so fast everyone present in the cave experienced slight whiplash.

    Eddie promptly fell over, arms bound at his sides.

    I heard a slight buzzing before a familiar (ha) green blur nearly hit me in the face. The second time in the last few hours Peri had tried to give me a haircut.

    "Sweet me! Are you all right? Did he hurt you? If he laid even a single feather on you I swear to Kosmos he'll regret it-"

    "I'm fine Peri." I laughed, grinning slightly as he craned his neck in attempt to make sure I was okay from every angle.

    Peri titled his head once more, then sighed and rubbed his face against my cheek. "Well don't you dare ever do something that stupid ever again young man."

Sky turned back towards me. "Is this is Eddie guy you were telling me about?"

"I do not appreciate this." Eddie grumbled from the floor, all tied up.

"Yeah it's him."

    She nodded. "Okay we're taking you prisoner, and you're going to tell us about Katestra-Augh!"

    Eddie had suddenly flipped himself onto his feet, the garrot falling off of him in melted off strings. He leapt across the cave and grabbed his familiar before promptly disappearing into the darkness.

    "Well that's just great." Sky hissed passive aggressively under her breath as she gathered up the strips of wire. "Because these things are just so easy to make.

    Carra watched patiently the spot where Eddie disappeared. Tail flicking back and forth.

    "We should get you back now." Peri insisted. "It's been a long...I think it's tomorrow at this point."

    "Are we going to head back now?" I asked translating for Peri.

    "Yeah it's pretty late. Everyone's asleep back at my place because they didn't want to go all the way back to Aurora's with you being missing." Sky explained. "I just about had to chain down Ryan to stop her from coming with me."

    I smiled wryly, that made me feel a little bit better. I mean, Ryan would definetly do something like that. I know it was silly but I wondered if Jason had done something similar. I wondered a lot of things about Jason.

    It was a long trip back in the dark. I stumbled a lot and Peri grew more paranoid every time. I know he said familiars don't need sleep and stuff but I'm pretty sure he needed a nap.

    Ryan was perched on the edge of Sky's treehouse and when she saw the two of us making our way back I could of sworn she transformed into a chipmunk by the way she climbed down that tree. She threw her arms around my before I got the chance to speak and promptly squeezed all the air from my lungs.

    "Can't...breathe." I gasped.

    "Sorry." She stepped back, and I inhaled sharply.

    Then she punched me in the arm. Hard.

    "Ow! Ryan!" I yelped, clutching at my elbow.

    "You stupid! Stupid! Boy!" She exclaimed, wacking me over the head with a fistful of pine needles each enunciation. "What where you thinking? What? Were you just going to catch up to Eddie and have a nice chat over some tea while he told you all of his cult plans? Pass the sugar Craig, now let me tell you the dark backstory of my mistress blah blah."

    I blushed with embarrassment. "I may have gotten a bit caught up in the moment."

    Her jaw dropped open and she put a hand on her hip. "You think?"

    Then she hugged me again, and I'm sure I heard a few ribs creak with the strain.

    "Sweet Spirits Ryan." I gasped. "Speaking of Eddie's cult leader or whatever, I actually-"

    Ryan dropped me back into the snow with a startled look. Sky had decided two hugs ago that she was over our sibling reunion and was halfway up the tree.

    "No way." Ryan blinked in disbelief. "Did she hurt you? Tell me everything."

    "Yes way, and I think this should be more of a group discussion."

A few minutes I climbed through the doorway to Sky's little tree igloo and found everyone knocked out on the floor. Except for Jason, who looked up when the curtain moved.

"Hey!" He grinned. "Thank Kosmos you're okay."

I suddenly didn't need a hearth because nothing was more warming than this boy's smile. Worth it.

"Y-yeah, sorry about running off." I apologized, feeling the heat rush to my face, his did stay up for me.

"No problem, what matters now is that your safe."

Ryan nearly pushed me over as I had been blocking the doorway. "Cut the chit chat, Craig met snake lady."

"What's going on?" Eryan suddenly sat up. "Craig?"

"Snake lady?" Jason asked.

"Is Craig back?" Aurora was up now as well. "Are you alright dear?"

"Yeah I'm fine." I assured. "And her name is Apophis."

I spent about half and hour going over what happened. It would have been shorter I think if Sky hadn't kept asking for me to back up and give more specific details. Finally I finished and met there hesitant stares in the dim firelight.

"I think I had an idea of the 'gift' this she was talking about." Jason turned and rummaged through his bag.

    He pulled out the stick of wood that Eddie had given to us out of nowhere when we fist arrived. About a foot long, with the runes and ambiguous green stone in the middle. I blinked in realization and felt shivers go down my spine.

    "You don't think it will do something when you use your powers on it, right?" Jason ask, handing it to me.

    Out hands brushed for a moment and his eyes met my gaze. I nearly dropped it out of panic.

    "I've never heard of anything like that." Sky breathed, tapping a quill against her chin. "But then again ever since you five have come along a lot has happened that I've never heard of."

    Everyone was staring at me and I knew we were all wondering the same thing.

    "Go ahead." Peri urged, equally as curious.

    "Well I can't just turn it on and off." I frowned at him. "It's just kinda been random."

    "Jason, give him moral support." Ryan asked almost jokingly.

    "Uh, okay." He looked confused but honest, and gave me a heart thumbs up. "You can do this. I believe in you."

    I blushed profusely, thank Kosmos it was mostly dark in here, only to be greeted again by the familiar green glow of my hands and a tug in my gut. Ryan muffed me with her elbow and shot me a look. I spurted and scoffed at her in utter mortification.

    "Um...thanks. I guess that worked." I managed, feeling weak in the knees even though I was sitting down.

    I reached for the stick and everyone held their breath in anticipation.

    Only to be let down as nothing happened, except for the glow eventually faded and we were left in semi-darkness once again.

    "That wasn't a complete bust." Eryan yawned, leaning against my shoulder. "Have you ever noticed Peri's eyes glow when you do that?"

    Everyone turned to look at Peri on my shoulder. He shrugged.

    "Don't look at me." Then he started to preen, a bird's way of saying 'I'm ignoring you'.

    "He say's he doesn't know." I translated.

    "Figures, I'm going to go back to bed if you guys don't mind." Eryan said with another huge yawn, before laying back down.

    Sky patted my shoulder. "I'm going to stay a bit more and try and figure this out."

    Aurora gave the rest of us a stern look. "Everyone else better get to bed. That was exciting but we have a busy day tomorrow, or today...later. Get some rest."

    I tried not think of anything to much as Ryan handed me some of her blankets as I lay down. Some sleep would be really great right now.